Learning To Live In A Changing Climate - UNICEF

vulnerability to climate change is a product of sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity;UNICEF can prioritise actions to target the most vulnerable children and adolescents inBangladesh to help stem this growing inequality.Climate change makes all UNICEF priority areas more vitalAchieving UNICEF’s mandate in Bangladesh has become both more important to achievein the face of climate change, and more difficult to achieve because of climate change.Achieving Education, Health, Nutrition, WASH, and Child Protection outcomes are vital forreducing vulnerability and actively build the adaptive capacity of children and adolescents inBangladesh.Who is vulnerable and what success looks like has changedThe vulnerability context for children in Bangladesh is dramatically changing, therefore theCountry Programme 2017-2020 must be oriented towards meeting the needs of children andadolescents vulnerable to climate change impacts and its associated increased disaster risks.Efforts to prevent backsliding of development gains as a result of climate change, as much asprogress forward, must be prioritised in the Country Programme 2017-2020. New approachesmight be needed to achieve the same things, or tried and tested approaches may no-longerwork or not be the most appropriate.Predictable disruptions must be planned forAccess to education services, healthcare provision, and safe drinking water will requiredifferent considerations in different locations in light of climate change impacts, particularly inareas suffering chronic crisis where there is no longer a distinction between disaster periodsand normal periods. Climate change impacts must be factored into planning for continuity ofservice provision.Projects and policies must be climate risk screenedUNICEF and Government of Bangladesh investments must now be suitable and sustainable inthe face of climate change. Climate change and disaster risk analysis must be mainstreamedacross UNICEF’s portfolio to ensure investments are not undermined by climate change anddisaster risks, or indeed inadvertently make people more vulnerable.New investments are needed to adapt to climate changeNew policies and initiatives are needed for Bangladesh to adapt to climate change, thereforethere is a role for UNICEF to ensure that the voices, perspectives, and needs of childrenand adolescents are brought into these processes, and there may be new climate changeadaptation initiatives that UNICEF has a comparative advantage to lead on.2Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh

1INTRODUCTIONLearning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh3

1.1 CLIMATE CHANGE AND VULNERABILITYClimate change and environmental degradation are alreadyharming children, especially those that are most disadvantaged.Unless action is taken, future impacts will be far more dramatic,undermining much of the progress made for children over thelast decades. Each of the seven Outcomes Areas of the UNICEFStrategic Plan 2014-2017 – health, nutrition, HIV, water andsanitation, child protection, social inclusion and education – isaffected in some way by climate change and/or environmentaldegradation.UNICEF Strategic Framework on Environmental Sustainabilityfor Children 2016-2017.Climate change presents one of the greatest development challenges of our time, and it isnow clear that the eradication of poverty and inequality cannot be achieved without alsoaddressing the causes and consequences of climate change. At the global level this requires atwin-track approach, of both curbing the actions that are causing climate change, and learningto live with the now unavoidable climatic changes that are and will continue to unfold. Tocurb further climate change requires mitigation actions that reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs)in the atmosphere; primarily by reducing the volume of GHGs emitted into the atmospherethrough the burning of fossil fuels. Large scale decarbonisation of economies is required inorder to deliver the scale of mitigation required to slow down climate change, limiting globalwarming to “well below 2 C1” as agreed last year in the UNFCCC Paris agreement; andcrucially also to create space for some increase in emissions from developing countries inorder to support poverty reduction and address global inequality.Even with concerted action on mitigation, adapting to climate change is now unavoidable assignificant changes are already locked into the climate system caused by the excess of GHGsbuilt up in the atmosphere since industrialisation. Those climatic changes are undermininglivelihoods, degrading vital natural resources, and putting lives at risks through increasingfrequency and severity of climate-related disasters. In this way climate change is underminingdevelopment opportunities, setting back progress already made, and actually exacerbatingpoverty and inequality.Bangladesh is often considered to be the country most vulnerable to climate change.2 Inaddition Bangladesh has high levels of existing poverty and inequality (43.3 per cent of thepopulation lives below the international poverty line of US 1.25 per day3), and low per capitaGHG emissions at just one ton per person (compared with nearly 20 tonnes per person inthe USA).4 Therefore for Bangladesh adapting to climate change is an urgent priority overmitigation action. For many people in Bangladesh climate change is compounding existingdrivers of poverty and inequality, starting to push important development gains out of reach,and potentially putting into reverse progress on a wide variety of development issues includingaccess to safe water, educational attainment, and the eradication of child marriage.4Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh

Why is climate change adaptation needed?lllClimate change undermines the sustainability of livelihoods;Climate change overwhelms the natural resource base on which peoples’ livesdepend;Climate change increases climate-related disaster risk.Who is most vulnerable to climate change, and why?lllThose who depend on climate-sensitive resources and ecosystems for their families’livelihoods, such as agriculture, fisheries, and forests.Those who live in marginalised and more hazard prone areas, such as flood plains,urban slums, and deforested hillsides.Those with limited assets and political voice to enable them to respond to the impactsof climate change (lower adaptive capacity).What is climate change adaptation?Climate change adaptation refers to the actions that people and institutions make inanticipation of, or in response to, a changing climate. This includes changes to the thingsthey do and/or the way they do them.The purpose of climate change adaptation is to create the conditions where peoplebecome increasingly able to make informed and appropriate decisions about their livesand livelihoods in a changing climate. The goal is the ability for everyone to thrive inspite of a changing climate.What is adaptive capacity?Adaptive capacity refers to the potential of individuals, communities, and societies tobe actively involved in the processes of change, in order to minimise negative impactsand maximise any benefits from changes in the climate. This potential is undermined insituations of poverty and inequality, and points to the wider socio-economic factors thatinfluence how households and communities manage risk on a daily basis, and relates tothe successes and failures of development and poverty reduction.5What is resilience?Resilience means many things to many people, and there is no universally applieddefinition within the international development and humanitarian sector. Notions ofresilience tend to be similar to adaptive capacity, but often focusing more on shocksand hazards (such as disaster events) than on longer term changes (such as changes toaverage seasonal conditions over decades).The UNISDR definition of resilience is “the ability of a system, community or societyexposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effectsof a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation andrestoration of its essential basic structures and functions.”6Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh5

The vulnerability of a society to climate change is influenced by its development path,physical exposures, the distribution of resources, prior stresses, and social and governmentinstitutions.7 Following the UNISDR definition8, in this report vulnerability refers to thecharacteristics and circumstances of a person, community, system or asset that make itsusceptible to the effects of climate change and other hazards.This is expressed as thecombined result of physical exposure to hazards9, sensitivity to the stresses they impose, andcapacity to adapt to stresses and changes.A vulnerability perspective explains why not every country, and not every person, is affectedequally by climate change, beyond just the differing climatic changes they are exposedto in different locations. Even with the same exposure to physical impacts of climatechange women, men, girls, and boys will be impacted differently as their lives, livelihoods,and resources are sensitive to the changes in different ways, and their capacities (skills,knowledge, resources, government structures, social position, etc.) to be able to adapt aredifferent as these are determined by a wide range of social, cultural, and economic dynamics.Climate change is therefore often described as a threat multiplier, as it does not impact inisolation to other factors, in fact it tends to exacerbate existing challenges and inequalities.This makes UNICEF’s priority focus on equality even more important, as well as more difficult,to achieve.Climate change both feeds on and accentuates inequality.Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF (2014)10What is climate change?The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines climatechange as a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activitythat alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to naturalclimate variability observed over comparable time periods.Changes to the composition of the global atmosphere occur when greenhouses gases(GHGs) are emitted into the atmosphere in greater volumes than when it occurs naturallyfrom the planet’s processes, and when the planet’s processes to sequester or ‘sink’GHGs (to prevent it reaching the atmosphere) are hampered. Emissions of GHGs fromburning fossil fuels, and reduction of sinks through deforestation and cultivation of landare human activities that directly alter the composition of the global atmosphere. Indirectimpacts are through feedback loops, where warming caused by these human activitiesreduces the ability of oceans to sequester due to increased surface temperatures, andreduced coverage of ice sheets (melted by warmer temperatures) increasing warmingfurther through reduced surface area for reflecting back solar heat.In addition to causing climate change, there are of course other negative consequencesof burning fossil fuels and reducing sinks, such as air pollution, degraded land, andresource scarcity. Tackling the causes of climate change will have numerous co-benefitsfor everyone. For the purposes of climate change work it is important to focus on thecauses and consequences of climate change as a political-economy problem not asan environmental problem. This is because climate change is not caused by ‘natural’or environmental processes, but by human economic activities that fail to ‘cost in’economic, social, cultural, and environmental losses caused by increased risk andinstability, with particularly devastating consequences for the most vulnerable across theworld.6Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh

1.2 VULNERABILITY IN BANGLADESHBangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change for a number of reasons, outlined inFigure 1.SENSITIVITYPeoples’ livelihoods are climate-sensitive – cropfarming, livestock production, and fishing are entirelydependent on the climate conditions, and make up thebackbone of Bangladesh livelihoodsMud houses, urban slums, and poorquality infrastructure are highlysensitive.EXPOSUREAs a low lying country on a megadelta, Bangladesh is particularlyexposed to global sea level risethat is caused by thermalexpansion(warmeroceansexpand) and by melting ofglaciers, polar icecaps, andice-sheets increasing the overallvolume of the oceans.ADAPTIVECAPACITYHigh levels of poverty and inequality severely limit both the adaptivecapacity of the country and itsVulnerability toinstitutions; and the adaptivecapacity of women, men, girls,Climate Changeand boys in Bangladesh. Climatechange is now a threat multiplier,exacerbating many of the challenges people already face.Bangladesh has always been adisaster prone country, and inHigh levels of education, nutritional status,addition to long term changes tohealth, inclusiveness, equality, safety, and secuaverageclimaticconditions,rity contribute an individual’s and a society’sclimate change is also causingcapacity to adapt positively and sustainably tomore unpredictable andchange. Current under-performance in thesemore extreme weather,areas in Bangladesh is therefore limiting adapleadingtomoretive capacity.frequentand/ormore severeLimited institutional and financial capacitydisasters.to plan and respond to the direct andindirect impacts of climate change.Figure 1 : Summary of Bangladesh’s vulnerability to climate changeGiven Bangladesh’s high level of vulnerability to climate change, efforts to eradicate povertyand reduce inequality will not be successful without addressing the causes of climate changeat the global level, and adapting to climate change at the local and national levels. Withoutthis, climate change impacts will simply exacerbate the existing poverty and inequalitychallenges, and erode hard fought for development gains, putting long term sustainabledevelopment for all beyond reach.Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh7

Maplecroft rates Bangladesh as the country most at risk dueto extreme levels of poverty and a high dependency onagriculture, whilst its government has the lowest capacity ofall countries to adapt to predicted changes in the climate.Maplecroft’s Climate Change Vulnerability Index (2011)11VULNERABILITY EXPOSURE SENSITIVITYADAPTIVECAPACITYFigure 2 :8Vulnerability compositionLearning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh

1.3 VULNERABILITY AND CHILDRENIn every crisis, children are the most vulnerable. Climate changeis no exception. As escalating droughts and flooding degradefood production, children will bear the greatest burden of hungerand malnutrition. As temperatures increase, together with waterscarcity and air pollution, children will feel the deadliest impactof water-borne diseases and dangerous respiratory conditions. Asmore extreme weather events expand the number of emergenciesand humanitarian crises, children will pay the highest price. Asthe world experiences a steady rise in climate-driven migration,children’s lives and futures will be the most disrupted.Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF (2015)12Climate change is an issue of vital importance for children, not just because they are one of themost affected groups right now, but also because their future – and their children’s future –willbe so fundamentally influenced by what actions are taken now to meet this challenge. Childrenwill suffer the effects of climate change and climate change policies longer than adults, makingthem vital stakeholders in today’s decisions about climate change responses.Children are affected in many ways by climate change in Bangladesh, both in a worseningof challenges that were already present, and through new challenges arising from changingaverage climatic conditions becoming the new ‘normal’. The types of climate risks confrontingchildren are diverse, ranging from direct physical impacts, such as cyclones, storm surgesand extreme temperatures, to impacts on their education, psychological stress and nutritionalchallenges.13Cyclones, floods, rising sea levels, tidal surges, and river erosion are damaging anddestroying infrastructure critical to children’s well-being, including schools, healthfacilities, latrines, houses, and roads.Floods, increasing salinity, and droughts are destroying crops and trees, disruptingwater systems, and contaminate water resources, reducing children’s access to safewater and nutritious food.Seasonal shifts, salinity, increasing temperatures, and more erratic rainfall patternsare eroding livelihoods, increasing poverty and leaving families struggling to meettheir most basic needs.Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are exacerbating the spread ofvector-borne diseases such as dengue, which disproportionately affects children.Land loss from flooding and river erosion, dwindling water supplies, and failingclimate-sensitive livelihoods are increasing migration, disrupting families andincreasing vulnerability of displaced children.Learning to Live in a Changing Climate: the Impact of Climate Change on Children in Bangladesh9

These impacts are falling unequally on children compared to adults. Children are morevulnerable to vector-borne diseases than adults; under-nutrition and diarrhoeal diseases canmuch more easily lead to severe and often dire consequences in children; and the physicaldangers of disasters pose unique threats to young bodies and minds.14Unaddressed, climate change will harm the poorest and mostvulnerable children first, hardest, and longest.15UNICEF (2015) Unless We Act NowChildren and young people are particularly vulnerable to the impactsof climate variability and change because they are physiologicallyand metabolically less able than adults at adapting to heat andother climate-related exposure. Their still-evolving developmentputs them at higher risk of contracting diseases and succumbing torelated complications due to lower functional immunity.Children arealso more likely than adults to be killed or injured during disasters:of those affected or killed as a result of disasters globally, half arechildren. As climate change intensifies, the impacts of weatherrelated disasters will put more children in harm’s way, compoundingexisting threats to children’s health, food security, livelihoods,protection and education. Children are particularly vulnerablein disaster situations. The breakdown of social institutions andlivelihood options in devastated areas creates difficulties in securingfood and humanitarian supplies, leaving children extremely vulnerableto trafficking, sexual exploitation and often forcing them to work inhazardous labour conditions.Source: UNICEF (2011) Children’s Vulnerability to Climate Change and DisasterImpacts in East Asia and the PacificClimate change can create a vicious downward spiral of poverty for those already vulnerable.A child already living in poverty or without adequate water and sanitation before a crisis willbe more impacted by a flood, cyclone, or drought, and less able to recover quickly, puttingthem at even greater risk when the next flood, cyclone, or drought occurs, which is nowmore frequently than in the past. Whilst this cycle continues, during each period of stressor crisis that child’s education is disrupted and health undermined, potentially eroding theiradaptive capacity in adulthood. Therefore tackling climate change and its impacts on childrenis an imperative for equity; reducing inequity between children now will promote their futureresilience to climate change and disasters.10Learning to Live in a Chang

1 INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Climate Change and Vulnerability 1.2 Vulnerability in Bangladesh 1.3 Vulnerability and Children 4 7 9 2 BANGLADESH DISASTER PROFILE AND THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE 13 2.1 Bangladesh Climate Change and Disaster Context 2.2 Flood and Rainfall Changes 2.3 Cyclone and S